Tomorrow is the start of a new quarter at my school. I have three new students to tutor and most of the students who absented out last quarter are back to try again. Towards the end of the quarter last year, I noticed that the detention list was getting smaller and smaller. This made me very happy until my supervisor told me that it was because so many students had stopped coming to school.
The school I work at emphasizes “fresh starts” and therefore, there is a chance to receive brand new grades five times a year: The school year is divided into quarter systems plus a summer session, so there are five times a year for students to improve. But time and time again, they fail their classes, absent out, or wait until the last minute to bring their grade to a passing one. What’s frustrating about high school, as opposed to elementary or middle school, is that students ultimately have the ability and desire to make their own decisions. When they’re younger, the possibility of a detention or suspension was enough to keep them listening. But after so many times receiving these punishments, the effect has worn off and they have nothing motivating them against their own short-sighted desires.
Because god knows that we’re not enough. In fact, as much as we tell them what to do, I’d say that only about 20% of it is acknowledged. I don’t blame them. In most societies, they would be adults and ready to be responsible for their own issues. It’s hard to fight against that. Because ultimately, you can give them all of the suspensions and detentions and punishments in the world, but they have to make the decision to succeed and no one else. I don’t think wisdom is something you can gain from another person. I think you have to live it yourself, or else it’s not wisdom at all, but just wise advice. Plus it’s hard for a bunch of inner-city poverty and tragedy stricken kids to listen to a bunch of overeducated, white 23-32 year old females. I sure wouldn’t see why we’re worth listening to if I were them.
Reminds me a bit of Parkway Middle School …thoughts of stimulated inspiring the uninterested and meeting with hostility. Why is it that making the transition to “being educated” is so difficult?
Comment by Geri Bassett — November 3, 2009 @ 11:22 am
I think it’s because it is a transition into the unfamiliar and foreign. Being uneducated like everyone else they know is so much more comforting and secure.
Comment by abassett — November 4, 2009 @ 2:46 am